Port Sun Sets Quickly in ‘Western’

The bad news: That venerable art house--the Port Theatre in Corona del Mar--will close in a week.

The good news: It is going out strong, showing the kind of film that built its loyal, if insufficient, clientele.

“Western,” which is not a western, starts Friday and runs until the theater closes its doors for good Aug. 20.

Shot in CinemaScope on Brittany’s rugged and beautiful west coast (hence the title), it is the breakthrough film for French director Manuel Poirier.

It won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year and has also won praise from most major American movie critics.

“ ‘Western’ is a delightfully subtle and perceptive blend of romantic comedy and road movie,” according to Times critic Kevin Thomas. (His review will run Friday in Calendar.)

New York Times critic Janet Maslin described the film as sly and delightful, amusing and heartwarming.

The film, trimmed to 123 minutes for American audiences, depicts the meanderings through Brittany of two foreigners--Paco the Spanish shoe salesman and Nino the Russian jilted by his French fiancee.

This is a French film, after all, so expect a bittersweet search for love. Poirier wraps the quest in sometimes humorous, sometimes pathetic, usually surprising twists.

The two men--”immensely likable guys,” according to Thomas--pursue women not as predators but as innocents. Their plots to meet women are almost childlike, and their goal is pure: to find love and anchor their lives. When one luckily and unexpectedly succeeds, he literally weeps for joy.

There is a background tension to the film. Resentment of foreigners is an issue in France nowadays, but Poirier’s view in “Western” is optimistic. Almost everyone the wanderers encounter in Brittany is friendly and helpful.

Poirier’s point of view must, in part, stem from his own “outsider” status, both as Frenchman and as director. He was born of French parents but in Peru and didn’t move to France until he was 4.

He dropped out of school as an adolescent, then bounded between jobs like a pinball--carpenter, prison worker, carpentry teacher--until the idea of making movies began to overpower him.

“When I was a teenager, just the fact of seeing a film made me feel less lonely,” Poirier told the New York Times.

“I realized that through a film you could share an emotion, a sensation, a point of view, a reflection. And I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to share your feelings this way?’

“One day [in the late 1980s] the idea simply became too strong, so I stopped work and decided to make films.”

Poirier’s relatively successful short films did nothing to movehim into the feature film ranks, so he used his next short-film budget to produce the first 20 minutes of a feature film he’d written: “La Petit Amie d’Antonio,” about a young French woman’s love for an immigrant, a theme of emigrant or class relations that has persisted though his features.

Presented with a partially completed film, the French television firm allocated another $400,000 and Poirier was in features.

Next came “. . . a la Campagne,” “Marion” and “Western,” Poirier’s most successful feature and his first to be released in the U.S.

Poirier chose Sergi Lopez to play Paco to no one’s surprise. Lopez’s first movie role was in Poirier’s first, and afterward Poirier said he wanted Lopez in every film he would ever make.

It was harder to find the actor to portray Nino, till Poirier found Sasha Bourdo. The Russian who had recently moved to France seemed ideal for the role of a Russian recently moved to France.

“Western” is unrated. It contains lovemaking and one scene of violence.

Show times at the Port Theatre, 2905 E. Coast Highway, Corona del Mar, are 4:30, 7:10 and 9:45 p.m. with 1:50 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday.

Outdoor Flicks

Drive-ins have all but disappeared, but there are some summer drive-to’s.

Friday night in the Arovista Park amphitheater, Elm and Sievers streets, Brea, Disney’s “Aladdin” will be screened. No admission or parking charges. Show time is 8:15.

Friday at Newport Dunes Resort, “Zeus and Roxanne,” a juvenile comedy about a dog and porpoise that become fast friends, starts at dusk. The film is free but parking is $6. Newport Dunes Resort is at 1131 Backbay Drive, Newport Beach.

On Saturday, Newport Dunes will screen the Michael Keaton comedy “Multiplicity” about a too-busy husband and father who clones himself, then must deal with the results.

Blankets and folding chairs are recommended for both venues.